Bangladeshi expatriates have sent $2.02 billion in remittances in 25 days of the current month ahead of Eid-ul-Azha, the second-biggest religious festival of Muslims.
Confirming the latest data, Bangladesh Bank (BB) assistant spokesperson Md Sarwar Hossain also told The Business Post that the country received $21.43 billion in FY2022-23, which is 1.9 per cent higher than $21.03 billion that came in FY2021-22.
The country will not see any remittance inflow in the next four days as the banks and financial institutions will remain closed due to the Eid holidays, starting today, said Sarwar, also the director of BB’s Foreign Exchange Policy Department.
The growing remittance inflow and some funds added as budget support also took the foreign exchange reserves to $31.15 billion on Monday.
The forex reserves were hovering around $29 billion before June 20 due to the USD selling spree by the central bank. BB has pumped over $13.5 billion into the banks until Monday in FY23.
June’s remittance figure is higher than the amount received in May. This happened as expatriates usually send more money to relatives back home before Eid to help them enjoy the festivities without worry.
Bangladesh received $1.69 billion as remittances in May, which was 10.27 per cent lower than the amount received in May 2022, as per BB data.
April’s remittance figure — $1.68 billion — is also lower than the amount received in 25 days of this June.
A senior BB official said to The Business Post that remittance inflow has been rising since the beginning of June mainly due to Eid, which the country is set to celebrate on Thursday.
Every year, migrants send more money to their relatives ahead of all the major festivals, the official added.
However, a commercial bank official said that the inflow has increased because of the better US dollar rate for remittance collection.
This official said that remitters now get Tk 108.5 per US dollar in remittance along with a 2.5 per cent government incentive.
The US dollar exchange rate is now the same in banks and the kerb market, which encouraged remitters to send money through banking channels, said the banker.
Between June 1 and 23, the highest $1.41 billion in remittance came through private commercial banks; $278 million through state-run banks; $95 million through specialised banks; and $5 million through foreign banks, showed BB data.
However, experts said that the remittance inflow is not increasing in proportion to the amount of manpower exported after the easing of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Money laundering and high immigration costs are the key reasons behind this, they said.
Bangladesh exported a huge amount of manpower since 2021 but no positive impact has been seen in the remittance inflow, said Towfiqul Islam Khan, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue.
The trend of money laundering in Bangladesh is very high and that is why remittance inflow is not reaching the expected level, he added.
